McClellan: President Bush should have fired Karl Rove

NBC’s Tim Russert asked Scott McClellan if President Bush should have fired Karl Rove for his role in leaking Valeria Plame’s name in the CIA leak case.

Partial transcript

RUSSERT: The President said at the time, if someone committed a crime, they would no longer work in my administration. Do you feel dooubl the President should have fired Karl Rove?

MCCLELLAN: That’s a choice the President had to decide and he chose not to. I think the president should have stood by his word and Karl was involved in it. That would be a tough decision. I don’t know if there was any crime committed, I say, I just don’t know that in the book. But we had higher standards at the white house. The President said he was going to restore honor and integrity. He said we were going to set the highest of standards. We didn’t live up to that. When it became know that his top adviser had been involved, then the bar was moved. It was moved to, if anyone is indicted, they’ll no longer be here.

About the Author

David Edwards has served as an editor at Raw Story since 2006. His work can also be found at Crooks & Liars, and he's also been published at The BRAD BLOG. He came to Raw Story after working as a network manager for the state of North Carolina and as as engineer developing enterprise resource planning software. Follow him on Twitter at @DavidEdwards.